Chapter 1
“Is that the new operative everyone’s been whispering about?”
Maria Hill hated being out of the loop, and returning from a three-week op in Kabul had left her decidedly so. She wasn’t one for water-cooler gossiping, but when the occasion called for it, well, she could stoop a little.
“The redhead? Yeah,” one of the other agents said. “Russian. Barton brought her in- apparently she’s ex-KGB, went off the rez a while back.”
“She’s ex-KGB? She looks barely old enough to be recruited now,” Maria whispered back.
“I know, right?”
“Anyone know what they’re planning to do with her?”
“Right now they’re just seeing what she knows and what she can do. And there are rumors…”
Maria watched as the Redhead followed Fury around a corner. Her bearing was military, sharp and poised, ready to move in any direction in a moment.
“Rumors?” she prompted. The agent glanced around, a glaring giveaway. Maria noted it mentally to mention to their superior later.
“That the Russians were looking for really specific things.”
“Like?” God, this was like pulling teeth.
“Werewolves,” the agent whispered. “ And vampires.”
“Working for a human government?” This, now, this was news. Weres and Vamps usually kept to their own enclaves, staying out of petty human squabbles and warfare. Only diplomats and renegades would engage with humans at that level.
“Yeah,” the agent with the info said, looking satisfied to have dropped the bombshell. “You can imagine it’s got Fury pretty riled up, the idea of a whole group of Suckers and Claws working for who-fucking-knows.”
“And she’s scary trained, too,” another agent puts in, looking thrilled to finally have something to add. “Like, I thought she was a robot. She doesn’t show any emotions or anything. Just totally still and calm all the time, but you just know she could kill you with whatever you have in your pockets.”
“She wouldn’t need that, just a full moon,” the first speaker said, waggling their brows.
Maria knew that depending on how developed a Were the Redhead was, she wouldn’t even need a moon, just a lack of sunlight; but this didn’t seem like the time to share her expertise with the class.
She slipped away, taking a slightly circuitous route over to one of the clearance-only elevators, and going up. The moment the doors opened, she was back in the thick of it, where she belonged.
“Hill!” Fury’s voice cut through the chatter. “My office.”
It was good to be back.